STOCKPILING PPE
Michigan spent millions of dollars acquiring critical equipment in early months of pandemic
When the coronavirus pandemic swept across the country earlier this year, personal protective equipment like masks, gowns and gloves soon became in short supply around the state.
With little federal help available at the time, states opened their own checkbooks and went shopping for the equipment needed.
“Back in the spring it was a huge concern among the front-line workers,” said Dr. Harrison Tong, director of emergency medicine at Mclaren Oakland Hospital.
“If you’re telling me that this is spread both airborne and on contact and I’m going to run out of personal protective gear then that’s a huge, huge problem because, on the back end, if healthcare workers come down with it, test positive or have symptoms they must be quarantined 10-14 days and now you’re out,” Tong said. “Now we have the rest who are able to work and have to pick up the slack so that becomes an issue. That was a big concern in the first wave.”
To fill the need and with no federal assistance readily available in the first months of the pandemic, the state of Michigan went shopping like everyone else — from traditional medical suppliers to big box retailers like Home Depot and Staples used by the average consumer, to the tune of nearly $137 million.
To account for spending by states in the early response period of the pandemic, primarily in March, April and early May, The Associated Press requested public records in all 50 states for PPE and ventilator purchase data.
The AP requested the date of each purchase; the vendor’s name, city and state; a description of the item bought; the quantity bought; and the cost.
The data collected by the AP only represents PPE purchased by states and excludes PPE provided by federal sources.
Companies were paid millions of dollars for PPE.
The state of Michigan, for example, spent more than $136 million for 39.7 million items of PPE that included N95 respirators, face shields, gowns, gloves, goggles or glasses, and ventilators to combat the growing spread of the virus from mid March into early May.
State spending include more than $12.4 million for more than 2.27 million faceshields, more than $494,000 for more than 5.46 million pairs of gloves, $14,000 for 10,400 sets of goggles, $22.3 million for 1.8 million gowns, $96.4 million for 30.1 million N95 masks, and $4.8 million for 301
ventilators.
Among the big box retailers the state tapped for its purchases were Home Depot and Staples.
The state spent $7,884 for 365,000 pairs of gloves and more than $6 million for 480,000 gowns with Home Depot.
The state purchased more than a million N95 masks for $3.74 million and nearlyl $22,000 for 1.7 million pairs of gloves from office supply store Staples.
Touch & go for a while
The magnitude of the pandemic was a surprise to Beaumont Health System Senior Vice-president of Supply Chain Melanie Fisher.
“We were building up inventory as we knew the pandemic was coming but not to the magnitude that we ended up burning through,” said Melanie Fisher, vicepresident of supply chain at Beaumont Health. “We had a year’s supply of N95 masks.”
Under normal conditions that would have sufficed.
But COVID was anything but normal and at the height of the pandemic Beaumont was going through its yearly supply in less than 10 days.
Having additional supplies coming in from the state and federal govern
ment was essential for hospitals.
Beaumont also has its own warehouse and transportation for equipment so that also helped when ventilators were scarce at one hospital and needed at others. Fisher said the hospital also used the warehouse for supplies obtained from national and local vendors including 3M, a supplier of N95 masks and Petoskey Plastics, which was among the innovative automotive manufacturing plants that shifted gears at its factory in order to produce disposable hospital isolation gowns.
“There was a lot of good collaboration,” Fisher said, noting that they ended up working with more than 200 vendors. “We’re in great shape at Beaumont. We stocked up and really utilized our self- distribution center.”
As with many hospitals, it was a learning experience that resulted in a system that is not likely to find itself in the same predicament as it did in March 2020. “We watch the burn rate daily and based on what we know today — if other implications were to come forward — we would be able to pivot to satisfy the demand for supplies.”
Today’s situation
As coronavirus cases and deaths have started climbing again through the fall and into the winter months, hospitals find themselves better supplied than when cases of
the pandemic first skyrocketed in the spring.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services keeps track of how much PPE is available at hospitals around the state and current hospital capacity.
Most of the hospital systems in the state report a greater than 30- day supply of the essential PPE — N95 masks, surgical masks, gowns, gloves and eye protection.
But there are a few whose supplies in some of the categories are as low as four-tosix days.
Not so at Henry Ford Health System, which has enough PPE for three months.
“For PPE, we continue to have inventories that can provide us for coverage for the next 100 days,” said Dr. Adnan Munkarah, chief clinical officer of the Henry Ford Health System.
At Mclaren Oakland, Dr. Tong said there’s some comfort in current supply levels.
“The current wave, there is definitely a more comfortable knowledge that we have enough PPE,” Dr. Tong said. “We want to conserve, we don’t want to burn through them just because you have them. Certainly the anxiety level on whether we have enough PPE or not has dissipated.”
Mclaren Oakland announced late last May that it had partnered with Premier Inc., a leading healthcare improvement company, to acquire a minority stake
in Prestige Ameritech, the largest domestic manufacturer of PPE products, including N95 respirators and surgical masks.
“We have an overall adequate supply,” said Dr. Beth Wendt, director of clinical operational effectiveness at Mclaren Macomb.
Wendt said they were able to provide staff with all of the necessary PPE needed at the start of the pandemic. What helped further was the supply from the state, including face shields, gloves, goggles, gowns, N95 masks and ventilators.
The state of Michigan has created a PPE stockpile should supplies at hospitals run low.
“The goal is to maintain a 60- 90 day supply of the most used and most critical items,” said Lynn Sutfin, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “The calculation to determine supply duration was developed using usage patterns from state hospitals as well as expert analysis from other facilities such as nursing homes.
“The state stockpile is reserved for emergency use and hospitals and other medical care facilities are encouraged to establish their own inventory,” Sutfin said. “As requests are received from the Healthcare Coalition Regions for PPE, those requests will be evaluated and supplies provided.”